The curious ghoulishness of Thatcher-death celebrations

posted at 9:21 am on April 9, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

Don’t get me wrong — I can appreciate taking any excuse to party, get drunk, and pretend that the world has been set aright in one fell swoop. (I’ve been waiting 25 years for the Dodgers to win another World Series for that very reason, and 20 for Notre Dame to win a football championship.) But this is truly, truly strange — and very revealing, in a number of ways:

Hundreds took to the streets as macabre ‘Thatcher death parties’ were held late into the night across the country, organised by critics of the ‘Iron Lady.’

Smashed shop windows, paint bombs and police being attacked were all consequences of the Left’s sick ‘celebration’ of Baroness Thatcher’s death from a stroke yesterday morning.

In Brixton, south London, riot police were deployed as the crowds, which had been drinking since 5pm, started to become more aggressive smashing shop fronts and throwing paint bomb.

In Liverpool, flares and fireworks were set off outside Lime Street Station by revellers, while in Bristol, seven police officers were injured – one seriously – as violence erupted at a street party of 200 people and police were pelted with bottles, cans and rubbish.

What exactly were they celebrating? Thatcher hadn’t been in power in over 22 years. An entire generation has gone by since Thatcher left office, and the Tories have held power only briefly since. If these people are so miserable and put her in the center of that misery, perhaps they should ask why their lot in life hasn’t improved since she left office.

Normally, this kind of celebration takes place when brutal dictators die while still clinging to power, not when elected leaders pass away 22 years after they honored the will of the electorate. That’s a key point, too — Thatcher didn’t seize power and rig elections to keep it, like the mullahs of Iran or (arguably) Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The voters of the UK made her Prime Minister, and kept her in place as she rolled out the policies that returned the British to economic, military, and diplomatic strength. If these ghouls want to protest, they should probably protest their own people instead of a long-retired popular leader whose place in history won’t be threatened at all by people who struggle to spell correctly:

It’s not even possible to be angry at these people, only to marvel at how empty and petty their lives must be. If they have been holding this kind of grudge for 22 years, on what kind of hate will they be able to live now?Queen Elizabeth wasn’t fooled. She’s breaking with tradition to attend Thatcher’s funeral, which while perhaps not intended as a rebuke to the ghoulish hooligans in the street certainly acts as one:

The funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s longest-serving leader of the 20th century, will be held in St. Paul’s Cathedral on April 17, officials said Tuesday.

Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, are expected to attend what will be the most elaborate funeral to be staged in London since the death of the queen’s mother in 2002. It will be the first funeral of a prime minister that the queen will have attended since Winston Churchill’s in 1965.

Thatcher, who died Monday at age 87 after years of declining health, will be given a ceremonial service with military honors, a service almost indistinguishable from an official state funeral.

Dignitaries from around the world will be on hand to remember the “Iron Lady” who transformed Britain through her free-market policies and thrust the country back onto the world stage through her staunch Cold War alliance with the U.S. and a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

The hooligans will be left in the dustbin of history, and given their performance last night, that’s justice.

…demonstrating, once again, that no one does “hate” as well as the left.

That said, however, I think there’s a bit of gamesmanship going on here, to make the ghouls look way more numerous than they really are. In at least one of the larger tabloid photo spreads, you can see the same people in several of the shots, though posed differently to apparently inflate the crowd size (which cannot really be estimated due to close cropping of the photographs). Similarly, all of that internet-vented rage could easily be spewing from a very small cadre animating a legion of sock-puppets.

But that having been said as well, I weep for England, for I believe that regardless of this current tantrum, she has, in fact, gone over the edge.

You SHOULD be angry, and wary, and at least a bit scared of these Neanderthals because it wouldn’t take much for conditions to be right again which would have them kicking down your door and dragging your family away for some invented crime.

Bishop on April 9, 2013 at 9:41 AM

I don’t have a lot of years left, but in recognizing what you say has been a ‘gathering storm’ for some time, I have prepared, and I await them.

Over 70 years ago, fighter pilots (THE FEW) that saved Britain from being defeated by Germany, would be hanging their heads in disgust today. I’d bet these people would have gladly let Adolf walk into the country. We’re watching the sun set on the British empire.

The bottom line. The people here directly or indirectly showing their all too common vitriol and lack of class will not even be a mention in a history book footnote. And Margaret Thatcher will still hold her place as one of Great Britain’s most powerful PMs; standing against Communism and Socialism and doing her share to bring down the Soviet Union.

I suppose a few of their anonymous comments might linger on a FAQ page somewhere about AdBlocking.

I’m not surprised. So many in the Left celebrate the departure of evil from this world, and to them Thatcher and the likes of her are evil. Same goes with any personal sufferings of high profile conservatives or any of their immediate family. One can count on those on the Left to provide comments of delight in the suffering and hopes and wishes for agonizingly slow death and a continual pox on conservatives all.

Yes, enough said.
You…or least ‘your side’ has no credibility here. Aghast at unkind words about a recently deceased famous stranger?
Please.
In many cases, comments on and reactions to Thatcher’s death are tasteless and indeed ghoulish, and I find it more inane and boring than offensive.
You’d do better to spend time on the worthy and thoughtful critiques of her tenure and legacy than spin outrage at this silliness.
She was a complex figure who led a fascinating life. At times she was a force…both for good and bad. And at times she was merely as reflection of the same.
I have no personal feeling towards or about her.

Credibility? Humorous. There is no Conservative equivalent to the vitriol from your side. Your hearts are hard and your entire side (except maybe you) aren’t afraid to speak their mind when a Conservative Leader dies. As I said before and with all due respect; you’re nothing if not classless.

Well for sure…not your opinion of me.
But why are you attacking/behaving so personally?
Was Maggie a dear friend…a relative?
I assumed we both had enough distance here where a conversation about all of it might be possible.
But if it’s all just too gosh dang upsetting, maybe step back for a bit.

Your side cheers 9/11 and the deaths of Reagan/Thatcher, but mourns the loss of Chavez and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Do you see how crazy your side is?

sentinelrules on April 9, 2013 at 11:05 AM

The irony…

Look if you wanna take on what you perceive as ‘my side’…why don’t you head over to London and shout at the 200 people Ed references here.
The admiration I have for Reagan and to a lesser degree Thatcher isn’t sentimental.
So agreed we don’t relate too much on that.

This isn’t surprising. Progressives have always been extremely dangerous people due to their toxic cocktail of beliefs.

It’s only a matter of what they think they can get away with. If they are feeling their oats, and God forbid really consolidate power, heads will roll like they always do when that happens, and I don’t mean that figuratively.

But if it’s all just too gosh dang upsetting, maybe step back for a bit.

verbaluce on April 9, 2013 at 11:06 AM

Actually no. But thanks all the same. Your finger on chin halo routine this morning aside, your schtick doesn’t much change. Every time you post your hateful propaganda here, you can pretty much expect me to not step back.

Maybe you should take some of your own advice? Spend more time with people more like yourself.

“When Pinochet escaped extradition to Spain for human rights abuses, Thatcher sent him a congratulatory commemorative plate. Pinochet’s military dictatorship killed between 3,000 and 15,000 people and tortured tens of thousands more. “Your return to Chile has ensured that Spain’s attempts to impose judicial colonialism have been firmly rebuffed,” Thatcher wrote in a personal note enclosed with the plate.”

All well said. But their vindictive, and quite frankly extreme, hatefulness really wasn’t as apparent to me until they got into a position where they seem to think there’s no recourse for us. I suppose they think we’re helpless at this point to push back any of their vitriol.

It’s not even possible to be angry at these people, only to marvel at how empty and petty their lives must be

You might want to think a little harder on that one. They celebrate for the same reason as the death of a dictator: They believe Evil has been removed from the world. And whether you like it or not this is how liberals view conservatives: they are evil.

Just as people within the Catholic church during the Protestant Reformation saw dissenters as a threat just by their existence and burned men, women and children at the stake for the sin of carrying a Bible. So dissenters to the Liberal Orthodoxy should be burned at the stake and the Town Square will celebrate their deaths.

That one lasted a thousand years and cost many people their lives. I’m not sure empty and petty are appropriate descriptions.

There’s nothing ‘curious’ about it. Most of the people attending the ‘death parties’ are younger than I am, which is to say they were born during her tenure as PM or not yet born at all. They have been marinating in the extreme Marxist cesspools called educational institutions. Their profs are of the same vein of George Galloway, who has never met a dicKtator or terrorist that he didn’t like – regardless of how brutal and atrocious – as long as they were against the West. They have been taught that everything bad in their lives is the result of capitalism and Mrs Thatcher. Of course, none of them has noticed that NO POLITICIAN save the pure Marxist has ever called for a return of the pre-Thatcherite days…even during the 13 years of Tony Blair, a Fabian Socialist, and Gordon Brown, a Socialist. NONE. Anyone, who is familiar with the Great Britain of the 60s and 70s, doesn’t pause a second to ask ‘Why?’

Also, while the death parties have received a lot of coverage, they are not some massive show of hatred by a country. Even The Guardian puts the figure at ‘hundreds’ attending Maggie death parties across the country. Most have been limited to a few dozen and several ended with looting, beatings, and even trashing charity shops (go figure). What do you expect from self-identified Communists, Marxists, Trotskyites, Marxist-Leninists, Stalinists, Maoists, and other assorted nuts?

Brixton, in South London, has been the site of one, but we are talking about Lambeth here. The whole area is one that has seen settlement by immigrants, the majority of which come from Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. It is a Lab stronghold. Their dislike of Mrs Thatcher shouldn’t surprise anyone. Most weren’t in the country when she was PM and have no knowledge of what it was like. To them, she represented the West, capitalism, Judeo-Christianity, etc. This area was the scene of some of the rioting in 2011.

On the other hand, the immigrants from formerly Soviet Eastern Bloc countries, there is profound respect for Mrs Thatcher. You will see them line the streets for her funeral.

Scotland, especially Glasgow, has seen the most celebrations and, again, who’s surprised? The Scots keep threatening to declare their independence. Well, let them. They will be forced to do without considering the fact that in FY2011/12 only 12% of Scottish households paid more tax than they received in services … almost entirely financed by Southeast England. Scotland can pay its share of the current debt and go join the euro since it will not be allowed to keep the sterling. Bully for it! It can sign up for bailing out ClubMed, which the UK doesn’t have to, in large part because Mrs Thatcher realised that a common currency was doomed before it was too late. So, go! Hopefully, you can clean up your act, reduce the knifings and other violence, and increase the life expectancy of your people in many areas. As it is now, in some areas of Glasgow, a boy born there has a 28 year shorter life expectancy than a boy born in a village in the Philippines.

So, Maggie Deadheads, celebrate your slavery, the soul-deadening that has resulted from a welfare state that the majority of Brits, including those on benefits, believe is broken, discourages work, and encourages bad behaviour. Just don’t forget to blame others for your miserable lives. You have to keep yourselves predictable.

“I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

I think a poll in any country on earth would disagree with you. That’s what happens when you arm genocidal militias.

libfreeordie on April 9, 2013 at 11:32 AM

I assume you’re talking about the brutal murders of thousands of white farmers in South Africa by the ANC which apparently you support since you’re a communist flunkie and that’s all the ANC is … a group of thuggish communist flunkies.

Mandela was the first President under the ANC. So clearly she’s talking about him.

libfreeordie on April 9, 2013 at 11:29 AM

So…where’s the problem? Mandela was a terrorist. (Of course, now he’s just a senile old fart.)

And the anc was – and likely still is – a terrorist organization.

But, you leftists do love you some terrs, don’t you? I’ll bet you’ve signed up to vacation in South Africa – or lovely “Zimbabwe” – this summer, haven’t you, liveasaslaveanddie? They’re such…sophisticated…vacay destinations. Idyllic.

They’ll do the same thing with W dies even though he averaged 5% unemployment and improved the lives of every American.

Well, except the few thousand who are dead fighting his wars.

lostmotherland on April 9, 2013 at 11:35 AM

I really do have to go. But this one sentiment that is constantly pushed here always needs attention. Were you to poll the people who served under George W. Bush, the overwhelming majority would still prefer to be fighting under him than this current incompetent.

the libs here can’t understand how it is a good thing to resist socialism, communism, etc.

Pinochet was a brutal dictator…. yet his policies saved Chile from what Argentina is going through. How much human misery has the Peron and their successors inflicted? Pinochet stopped Allende and his ilk from destroying Chile.

Was he brutal? Yes. Could he have done better? Sure. Did he leave office peacefully and transitioned it to a functioning country? You bet.

Contrast with the libs bestest friend: Hugo Chavez and Castro. Untold lives, misery, and destruction wrought, of which the liberals here are proud of.

As for this thread, it is once again simple: Leftists celebrated Chavez and mourned his death, a man who has plunged millions into despair, poverty, and ruined a once beautiful, thriving country. They hate, hate, hate and riot (and notice how none of the leftists in this thread have condemned these idiots in England) over a woman who helped end the greatest tyranny the world has ever known: the Soviet Union.

Admit it, libfree and the rest: you still wish the Berlin Wall was up and millions living in communistic slavery. Because by celebrating Thatcher’s death, you admit you hated her results. And that was her biggest one: defeating the Soviet Union.

Leftists in general have thrown wild celebrations at the death of Reagan, Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II. The three people responsible for the fall of communism in Europe. You leftists, and I include you, libfree, verbaluce, and others: how DARE you celebrate and condone wild revelry at the thought of communism’s great antagonists death. You people participate in and are morally responsible for all of leftism’s many, many evils in the world. And leftism IS evil. Pure evil. There’s not a shred of good and decency in it.

But their vindictive, and quite frankly extreme, hatefulness really wasn’t as apparent to me until they got into a position where they seem to think there’s no recourse for us. I suppose they think we’re helpless at this point to push back any of their vitriol.

hawkdriver on April 9, 2013 at 11:18 AM

Of course they think we’re helpless. The Left automatically assumes it because in their minds, following the rule of law doesn’t count for anything. We’re not doing it the way they do — rioting, demonstrating, writing hate-filled and provocative articles or putting up diatribes on YouTube — so it’s not valid.

Mandela’s ANC was a designated terrorist organisation in the 1970s and 1980s. Mandela, himself, has told how he instigated the military wing of the ANC and became its commander in chief, although he claims he never fired a shot. He organised military training and went to Ethiopia to be taught it himself.

Apartheid was an evil regime. It’s end was overdue.

Thatcher was in Parliament when she called Mandela a terrorist. She wasn’t Prime Minister. She saw the light a long time before others did.

Nelson Mandela and the ANC were put on the US terror list in the late 1970s. (I won’t ask ‘Who was President?’ because that might hurt liveenslavedthendie’s feelings.) Mandela and other ANC leaders stayed on that list until Condi Rice and George Bush removed him in 2008. Bill Clinton never removed him.

Of course, Liveenslavedthendie wrote his post on his way to a gun control rally. He was the guy in the Che shirt.

He’s a veritable walking oxymoron – with an emphasis on moron.

“We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing.”

– Che Guevera

“The N3gro is indolent and lazy, and spends his money on frivolities, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent.”

– Che Guevara

“Given the prevailing lack of discipline, it would have been impossible to use Congolese machine-gunners to defend the base from air attack: they did not know how to handle their weapons and did not want to learn.”

The hooligans will be left in the dustbin of history, and given their performance last night, that’s justice.

Nah, the hooligans are the heart and soul of socialist Britanistan.
Margret had placed a temporary stake in the heart of socialists but they recovered and have turned the country into a Muslim /socialist shithole thanks in large part to Tony Blair who wanted to flood the country with Muslims in order to “wash the faces of conservatives in diversity” and succeeded magnificently. They have dug their grave made their bed and must now sleep in it. Suicide by socialism, culturally and economically. Write them off for the moment. Their only way back is by a very unpleasant social breakdown and a very messy Arab Spring Cleaning. Of course, that will be true for all of us in the West.

You forgot the liberal basic rules of critique. If they say any classless statement about a Conservative … 1st Amendment, get over yourself, were you one of the one sobbing etc.

Make any justifiable observation about actual recorded history and dog whistles apparently go off. That’s what the professor is insinuating there. Ignore the Mandela United Football Club thugs. Ignore the murders attributed directly to a conspiracy she was involved with. Ignore the brutal Winnie neck-ties on children as young as a 14 year old. Ignore her conviction and six year sentence. Ignore it all because it’s really you, Pal.